Cardia Bioplastics and University of Sydney in cooperation to develop green PPC polymers

Cardia Bioplastics teams up with biomolecular engineers at the University of Sydney to create purified biodegradable, renewable, more cost-effective CO2 based polypropylene carbonate (PPC) polymers.

“The project’s aim is to minimize reliance on fossil fuels and address the current problems with commercial production of sustainable bio plastics PPC starch not just in Australia but globally,” states Associate Professor Fariba Dehghani from the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies who is the leader of the research team.

Cardia Bioplastics and University of Sydney in cooperation to develop green PPC polymers

The team is developing large scale solvent free technologies that reduce the levels of heavy metal used in PPC. According to Cardia, the material being developed will have a broad range of usability, at one end of the spectrum being used for fully recyclable shopping bags, at the other, as restorative implants in the human body.

“The clean technologies we develop will make it possible to produce environmentally friendly plastics utilizing waste CO2.” states Prof Dehghani. “Converting captured CO2 into products such as chemicals, plastics or other commodities is pivotal in our attempts to reduce the need for volatile organic compounds (VOCS).”

The process being developed by Professor Dehghani’s team could have international reach with its adaptation assisting in reducing carbon emissions in countries where geologic storage of CO2 is impossible.

On the health front Professor Dehghani says the synthetic polymer can be used as an alternative for a range of biomedical applications such as musculo-skeletal tissue engineering and drug delivery, treating bone diseases such as osteoporosis and musculoskeletal injuries that affect over 3.8 million Australians.

Cardia is the manufacturer of the world’s first CO2 plus starch carrier bag utilizing its patented PPC and starch blending technology.